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Comment by RHSeeger | Hacker News Reader

Out of curiosity, would you be ok with someone telling a non-us citizen black man in the US "If you don't like people acting racist toward you, go back where you came from"? That is fairly widely considered inappropriate in the US (though not universally).

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The US is pretty much the other extreme from homogenous country/society. Regardless of one's answer to your question, you are gonna need to pick a different country name in it to have any kind of comparison to Japan

It's rude to say that to someone, but as a foreigner if you can't come to terms with the face that you ARE an outsider, leaving's your only alternative (America's pretty diverse so eventually anyone can become a local, but in many places the visual difference will always set you apart).

I've been the foreigner before and there's a big gap between not being treated like a local and being actively encouraged to leave.

It’s still racism even if it’s culturally acceptable.

Only if you're treated worse. Which in many places you are not. But you're still not a local.

Is that form of racism still bad if it's culturally accepted? There are places in the world where it is not only culturally but legally encoded that non-natives are second class citizens. Should those places be denied the opportunity to self-determine that policy?

This is only one facet of a common problem that virtually every people on earth deals with. Is it so hard to acknowledge?

> There are places in the world where it is not only culturally but legally encoded that non-natives are second class citizens.

Hell, in Israel you can even be a native and be a second class citizen. I wouldn’t look to these countries as role models for human rights, though.

I think tilting at windmills is a great way to spend precious hours or years of your life to a net negative effect on your life. It may redound to the benefit of other people later but you’ll pay the costs, not them. If that sounds like a good deal to you go for it.

I am personally a big fan of going where I’m wanted and where I feel comfortable rather than trying to change other people.

Out of curiosity, would you be ok with a non-citizen Japanese person lecturing you on why Americans are bad because they don't have the exact same outlook and attitude as Japanese people?

Because that's what the author of this article is doing.

If that outlook is “is it ok to treat this person as a lower class of person”, then you should stand up for your values. Not all cultural relativism must end with blind acceptance.

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